It’s been a long time coming but we finally held our Peer Educators finale (as I called it) on Saturday. First a little background information. Starting in the second term, the assistant health teacher Joseph and I started a peer educators training program focusing on educating and sensitizing the students on HIV/AIDS. Since the beginning, we've met with the 12 selected form 1 and form 2 students on topics including basic facts on STIs and HIV/AIDS, decision making, saying no, and assertiveness. For a while we’d been planning to hold a one-day program finale in order to complete the program successfully and swear in the peer educators. It took a while for the small grant I wrote to come through and the PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Relief for AIDS Relief) funds to be available. The goal of the program was to equip our students to be effective as peer educators to educate, demonstrate, and sensitize their peers on HIV/AIDS and other issues. We hoped at the end of our program the students would walk away with additional knowledge and skills regarding HIV/AIDS education and the confidence to share their knowledge with their peers through discussions, games, role plays, and condom demonstrations.
Now I’ll start with the actual program and right now I’ll focus on what went well and save the difficulties for another day. The day before the program I gathered the 12 students (6 boys and 6 girls) together to discuss when they should be where wearing what and all that. At the time, my student Michael (who wrote me the best teacher letter and went to camp with me) wasn’t sure if he’d be able to come since his parents wanted him to go to market the next day. So I was very thankful on Saturday when all 12 students showed up. We started out by briefly reviewing what a peer educator is and what will be expected of them when the program is finished). Then we played a team true/false game to revise basic facts on HIV/AIDS with toffee (candy) won by all- 2 pieces to the winners, 1 piece to the losers. One thing that was important to me while planning the program was to make it as fun and interactive as possible- I didn’t want it to be another school day for them. Also I wanted to reward their hard work during all of our trainings last school year. Next we took a snack break and enjoyed biscuits (crackers) and cold water during which I showed them films about condom use to preface the nurse’s demonstration. My friend Joel (or Nurse Joel as he’s stored in my phone) came to do the condom demonstration and did a great job. I was happy to have someone from the clinic come and take part of the program. After the demonstration, I took the students outside to play the condom time bomb game like we did at camp. They enjoyed laughing at each other try to burst the ‘balloon,’ answering questions to review what was just learned, and dancing to Ghanaian music on my iPod I blasted from the tiny yet effective speakers I have here. While waiting for lunch, I had some pick and act scenarios on assertiveness, saying no, and negotiation for the more dramatic students to act out for us. I’d tried this before in groups of two but they’d mostly get up front and giggle so this time it went much better and I think some felt more comfortable doing it individually. Our lunch of jollof rice (spicy tomato based rice) with fowl meat was delicious and plentiful. The students loved going back for seconds!
In the afternoon, we did the Loss Exercise from the handy dandy Peace Corps Life Skills manual. Joseph took the students through the handout where they wrote down answers to questions about their favorite item, body part, activity, and person in addition to a secret nobody or only one person knows about them. During this part they were rather silly sharing that they put down their brain or their penis (due to the condom demo) or whatnot. Then we got to the more serious part where we walked them through imagining that they lost each thing they listed. Next we talked about how they would feel if this were actually true. It was a little difficult getting them to pretend but most of them got it in the end and listed emotions including feeling sad, bad, like they wanted to kill themselves, alone, abandoned, angry, etc. Then we discussed how this could relate to someone testing positive for HIV and how they would feel if they or someone they knew were in this situation. It was pretty powerful to see them process the exercise and put themselves in someone else’s shoes, practicing empathy and compassion. Last I had them tell me how they would treat someone who was experiencing this. It was really encouraging to hear responses like I want to help them, support them, and make them happy (when I asked for specifics, the boy said he’d have a party) instead of previous mentality of we should lock them up, kill them, etc. We also talked about the importance of support groups for PLWHA. Afterward we took a short break to prepare for the closing ceremony.
During the closing ceremony, we called the students up one by one to receive a certificate of completion and lollipops from me and a Peer Educator shirt from Joseph. I had red polo shirts made in Bolga with the HIV ribbon and the name of our school on the front and the names of all the peer educators listed on the back and the quotation “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” We celebrated by drinking minerals (Coke, Sprite, Fanta), snapping a plethora of photos, and having a short dance party. I also convinced the students to lay down on the classroom floor to attempt to make the red ribbon with our bodies. I got the idea from somewhere and wanted to try it. See the photo below and tell me if you can make out the ribbon. All in all the day went really well! Before the program, I wanted the condom demonstration/game and loss exercise to go smoothly and be impactful. I think they were highly successfully in educating the students on prevention and sensitizing them on stigma reduction. I’ll post again soon on challenges of putting on the training event.
During the Loss Exercise, my student Michael that I mentioned before asked if he could put down our peer education training as his favorite activity. Then once we went through the step by step of losing everything they wrote down he exclaimed ‘O madam- I lost you.’ Early on the training while we were discussing their role as peer educators I asked them if they had ideas on how to best educate their peers or the community. I gave them ideas like doing a quiz game or a film show but at the time they didn’t have anything. But by the end of it one boy mentioned how he’d like to setup a meeting in their respective area (they live in different sections or parts of the village) and a girl had the idea for them to put on a drama. Yesterday during one of the breaks in our school day, I noticed all my peer educators convening under the tree in front of my house. I asked if they needed something but they said no. Later on I called Michael over to ask what they were up to and he told me that they’re trying to better plan the drama then come to me when they have a solid idea. Today I used some of the girl peer educators to help with our Girls Club meeting where we played the transmission and risk game. Then Linda did the condom demo while I talked about it and answered questions and we ended with the condom time bomb (again). It’s really exciting to see the fruits of my labor!
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